Andy Driscoll wrote: > > Property taxes remain one of the great injustices levied against citizens, > as I see it. We base the education of our children, the delivery of public > services and the stability of our communities on the volatile values of > houses, not on property owners' ability to pay into the kitty for all of > those essential services.
> It's insane that we charge exactly the same taxes to people living next door > to each other, regardless of their incomes and ability to pay. I see no > justification in such regressive taxation. Mark Anderson replies: I've never understood why people hate property taxes so much more than other taxes. To me property tax makes more sense than other taxes. I think a person's wealth better describes their financial position than whatever their current income happens to be. Andy seems to think that a person's current income is a better basis for taxing than wealth. So those that "got theirs" can keep it, but those that may have few assets but are working hard to get more should get hit heavily by taxes. One of the major benefits of a progressive tax system is to mitigate the power of the wealthy by taking some of their wealth away. But power from wealth goes mostly to those that have a lot of property, not those that have a lot of income. So this benefit of progressive taxation is much more efficient when it hits property instead of income. Unfortunately the property tax is only on real estate, not total property, but that is unavoidable because personal property is too easy to hide or move into non-taxable jurisdictions. In any case, ownership of real estate probably does result in more government services needed. It also makes more sense to me that land ownership rights should be weaker than other property rights because the owner obviously did not create the land, or pay anyone else to create the land, unlike most other property. I realize that the above comments go against the weight of popular opinion. Go ahead and jump all over me, but please also give my comments some thought. Mark Anderson Bancroft _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
